Holding Them To Account 13 ; Bush Whacked On Iraq By Former Press Secretary

Excerpts from former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's book have been published and they slam the President's case for war with Iraq. He talks about Bush using propaganda to push the case for war and the media going easy on the administration in its justification for the invasion.

Tell The Truthiness ; Well done Scott McClellan on revealing the truth from someone who was on the inside.

Holding Them To Account 12 ; Special Comment On Bush, The War & Golf

War On Reality Part 88 ; Five Years Later From Mission Accomplished

This date marks five years since President Bush stood beneath a huge banner emblazoned with the legend Mission Accomplished. He said that major combat operations had finished in the country and that the US had won.

How wrong he was and how wrong he has been continually ever since. Some people rally against the critics of the current government headed by a guy who would be out of his depth in a puddle, but they forget to see the bigger picture. In decades, in centuries to come, historians and students will analyse this period in our history and say one thing.

"What the hell were the people doing to stop him and hold him to account?"

Tell The Truthiness ; President Bush is still the President and will be until January, as such, our current obsession over the presidential campaigns should not make Mr Bush any less accountable for his actions, whether they are from five days or five years ago.

SNL Gets On Petraeus & Everyone Else

Saturday Night Live continues to keep a ht lead on the activities of the presidential candidates. This is from last week's show:



Tell The Truthiness ; Keep it coming!

War On Reality Part 84 ; An Artistic Response To Bush & McCain

This picture was published in response to the death toll mark being reached the other day.

War On Reality Part 83 ; A Disconnected President

What was President Bush doing on the day that the death toll of US personnel reached 4000?

Hugging an Easter bunny.

Tell The Truthiness ; Then again, has he ever shown any true understanding, no matter what the casualty figure was?

War On Reality Part 78 ; Rove Blames Congress For Iraq Rush

You can't make a statement like Karl Rove's from last week and expect people to agree with you. Especially when it's personally thought to be a joke by some and known widely to be a lie by everyone else.

Taking a leaf out of Mr Bush's book and trying a bit of revisionist history by laying the push for the Iraq invasion at the door of the Congress and not the administration was greeted as a joke by Tom Daschle. But it's also members of Bush's inner circle that have backed away from Rove's comments. Andy Card and Ari Fleischer both were critical of what he said.

Tell The Truthiness ; We know that when something like this comes from George Bush, it's not surprising since he isn't recognised for being smart generally. But when it comes from someone who's nickname includes the word 'brain', it does seem like Karl Rove doesn't know what he's talking about.

War On Reality Part 70 ; Blair's 'Pathetic' Iraq Backdoor

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair was given a last-minute 'get out' on the eve of the Iraq invasion, but didn't take it.

George Bush was concerned about the effect the military action would have on his "closest ally" and the UK government. The President was given advice by the United States London embassy that the war vote prior to the invasion could bring down Mr Blair's government.

The reason Mr Blair didn't take the offer from the President? He thought it would look "pathetic".

Tell The Truthiness ; Since 2003 there's been 1,220,580 war casualties in Iraq. What looks more "pathetic" now Mr Blair?

Saunter To The White House Part 8 ; Paul To Bring Back Democracy

Presidential hopeful, Ron Paul, has introduced a bill in the House Of Representatves to have the Military Commissions Act repealed.

Hardly being covered by the mainstream press, the American Freedom Agenda Act would include restoring habeas corpus to suspects.

Here is some analysis and comment from Countdown last year on the pushing through of the Military Commissions Act



Tell The Truthiness ; Good try, but don't hold your breath.

War On Reality Part 63 ; Coalition Of The Dwindling

Out of a non-US force of 50,000 in Iraq at the beginning of the war, it will drop to a staggering 7,000 by the middle of next year.

Not only is this an example of how the "coalition of the willing" (remember that, gosh it takes us back) has seeped away, but also shows, in stark relief, how much more the burden of this war is being heaped on US troops.

Nearly every country that was allied with the United States is reducing or is planning to reduce it's contribution this year or the next.

Tell The Truthiness ; It might seem inappropriate, but Mr Bush, just declare victory, call the UN to arrange peace keepers and quietly leave. Giving all business interests back to the Iraqis. When we say leave, don't build a couple of airbases on the frontier near Iran or anything. Just leave and give these people back their country. It'll be difficult, but what's happening now is difficult enough to bare. So try the alternative.

Brits See The Light, Head Home ; Brown's Speech

Here is the video of Prime Minister Gordon Brown announcing the cutting of UK troops in Iraq.

Blackwater 2 ; Australian Private Company Opens Fire

An Australian company opened fire on a car at a checkpoint after it failed to stop after warnings, reports say.

Employees of the Unity Resources Group shot dead two woman today despite repeated warnings in central Baghdad to slow down and stop, including hand signals and a flare.

The Chief Operating Officer of Unity was "unaware" about the deaths when questioned.

Tell The Truthiness ; Reportedly, this is the first time Unity have been reponsible for a fatal shooting, lets watch and see that they keep to their promise and do "whatever" the Iraqi Interior Ministry asks them to in relation to this shooting.

War On Reality Part 61 ; Iraqi Government Says Surge Has Failed

The whole aim of the surge was that an increase in troops would lead to stability which would give leaders breathing space to achieve political progress.

But any political progress hasn't just stopped, it's gone backwards. If any evidence was needed, here it is; the Iraqi government has recognised that progress is just not possible and will not happen.

Tell The Truthiness ; Some predicted a "major breakthrough" in governing in Iraq. If progress ever does happen it will be methodical, plodding and agonisingly frustrating.

Road To Tehran 1 ; Joint Chiefs Dust Off Plans

Today we launch another thread to our coverage ; 'Road To Tehran'. Although there has been discussion of a war in Iran as not possible in the current climate, we all know how spin and repetition of an idea can change people's minds.

The Vice President has asked the Joint Chiefs to redraw plans for an attack on Iran. An initial attack would be by bombing of nuclear sites, military and infrastructure.

Tell The Truthiness ; If this is the next step in Bush's and Cheney's plan, how far will it be allowed to go and who will ultimately stop it?

More Links, To More Places, More Often

May we recommend this site Either Relevant Or True : Blogging Keith Olbermann .

Fighting Them There So We Don't Have To Fight Them Here, Yeah Right

We've been told recently that the surge is beginning to show results in Iraq.

Lets hope the White House has seen the news of 500 people killed in the Ninevah area of Iraq.

Tell The Truthiness ; Because as we all knew, before the invasion of Iraq, rogue terrorist elements were killing hundreds every day? They all turned up after we arrived, they weren't always there, so don't try and revise history to suit your cover story.

BV For Bush Vendetta?

Well, with the searching that's been going on for actual reason behind the invasion of Iraq, this one seems to have popped up and missed everyone's radar; it's all about revenge.

George W Bush is reported to have been overheard by Senator Tom Daschle, who then relayed the story to a radio talk show host that the reason for going after Saddam and into Iraq ; it was revenge for the assassination attempt made on his father by Iraq.

Tell The Truthiness ; People tend to try and kill you when you're the leader of a country, ask anyone who's had an attempt made on their life. Seems a bit severe to us, don't you think?

3618 US forces deaths so far, all for one failed murder attempt. Is this the reason Mr Bush?

War On Reality Part 19 ; Someone Must Believe The Words He Throws Out

In his 4th Of July speech, Mr Bush did just what you've come to expect him to, related the war in Iraq to another war, which had different intentions and was grounded to a different place in time.

He related the US war of independence to that of the invasion of Iraq, just like he's compared it to the second world war and all conflicts in between. He said the enemy being fought in Iraq was the same that attacked the US on 9/11 and for the same reasons.

The second world war would have happened if the US had got involved or not, indeed, it had been going for a while before they joined in. Its clear Iraq would still be pretty stable if the invasion hadn't happened, plus Saddam would not have launched WMDs, unless he bought them from us in the meantime.

Some of those attacking coalition (does it count as a coalition with just two parties?) forces are no doubt Iraq citizens who've had enough of the occupation and quite rightly just want their country back.

Tell The Truthiness ; If five years of a war is not 'early' to exit it, then what do you deem a short war Mr Bush, twenty years?

The Prince & The Platoon

After all the debate, threats (we've been told) and lots of pictures of royalty in army formal dress it's been decided that Prince Harry will not go to Iraq.

Harry, third in line to the UK throne, had said he would leave the Army if he wasn't allowed to go to Iraq. But it was deemed too dangerous to send him as several threats included killing or kidnapping which if occurring, would have led to an unraveling of UK policy in that country.

Argument had tired over the past few weeks that either he isn't sent as he's a successor to the monarch or that there's no reason to spare Iraq from his military record and should go out there.

One aspect of the whole discussion that was not touched on by the mainstream media was that if he was sent, additional troops would 'double-up' in a sense, to provide protection for the Prince. Parents of troops, one of whom was spoken to by the Truthiness Team expressed despair as to the justification for sending their son as a shield for Harry, its not as if being in a war zone isn't dangerous enough without that extra duty to deal with.

To Tell The Truthiness ; If there were 'unacceptable risks' in sending him, then surely sending any troops to Iraq (no matter who their father or grandmother is) has 'unacceptable risks' and needs urge revaluation.

War On Reality Part 2 ; The Laura Truman Show

In an interview on Larry King Live on CNN, that well known Iraq expert, Laura Bush said she blamed the media for showing that '' one bombing a day'' on the TV screens.

Yes, because the media are misreporting the Iraq civil war situation to a vast degree First Lady.

It sounds like Mrs Bush is trying to make the war sound like an episode of Scooby Doo.

The Truthiness Blog Says ; We would have got away with it too if it hadn't been for that pesky one bombing a day!